“You’re a bit early to be hitch-hiking,” the hot girl leaning forward over the counter said softly.

Tim sipped his coffee. Too hot. “Actually, I’m a little bit late. Was with that guy all the way from Edinburgh. Nice guy. Refused any money. But he’s heading toward York. I’m heading toward London.”

“Yeah. I heard.”

Tim looked over the top of his drink as he blew on it. She was pushing her chest forward and up, her shoulders back. She was wearing a unisex cotton shirt that made no room for her breasts, so they seemed to be trying to burst out of it, toward him. He sipped at his coffee again and started feeling much warmer.

“It okay?” the girl said.

“What?” said Tim.

“The coffee.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“What’s in London?”

“Family. Home.”

“What were you doing in Scotland?”

“Not much.” He grinned awkwardly.

The girl nodded. She sucked her lips in and pushed some hair behind her ears. She’d run out of things to say.

Tim drank as quickly as he could. This was uncomfortable.

“Thanks for that,” he said finally, pushing the empty cup back toward her. “Just what I needed.”

“You off?” the girl asked.

Tim looked toward the entrance. “It’ll be getting light soon. Hopefully I’ll catch some commuter heading south.”

“Well. Good luck. I guess.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

Then he stood up. He pulled his rucksack onto his shoulders; it seemed much heavier now. As he left the food court, near abandoned as it was, the girl went back to talking to the black guy. For the first time, Tim noticed her name badge. She was a Jennifer.

Dawn was cracking. When Tim got outside the night sky to the east was turning grey along the horizon. Somewhere over there, over the water, over France it was already light and the morning was racing toward him with all the restraint of a tropical storm. Tim zipped up his coat.

There were even less cars in the car park than when he’d arrived, and only one lorry. Tim pulled his hat over the tops of his ears as he headed toward the road. The traffic, though still sparse, was getting more regular.

Tim walked along the roadside until he was away from the motorway services. Then he stopped and took off his rucksack and opened the flap. Inside, folded in two, was hitch-hiking sign. Though it was mounted on a piece of cardboard, the sign itself the words said: ‘LONDON. Can pay.’) was a computer print-out, and the cardboard had been trimmed neatly into a square. He’d hoped the planned look of it, not to mention the promise of a donation, would garner him more offers than some hobo-type with a felt-tip pen and back of a cornflakes packet job. And he only needed one offer.

Sign unfolded, Tim put the rucksack on his back and started walking along the hard shoulder. The increasing flow of traffic came from behind, so Tim tried to walk backwards, or at least sideways, with the sign extended to that it would catch the headlights. The grass along the roadside was long and the ground muddy from an earlier rainfall, so Tim found it easier on the tarmac itself.

Before long, and Tim didn’t expect anyone to stop for him until it got a little bit lighter, he found himself whistling ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ entirely subconsciously. That made him laugh and kept a smile on his face for about half a mile. After that he made a conscious decision to keep whistling it anyway, even if he had to drop the harmonica line. He just kept reminding himself that every step was a step closer to home, even if was still several million footsteps away. It felt a lot nearer.

Tim didn’t know how far he had walked when the lorry driver stopped for him. He hadn’t crossed any breakaway roads, any turnings or any junctions. He hadn’t passed any ‘Manchester 80’ signs since he’d got out of the truck from Edinburgh. He lowered his sign and stopped when the lorry driver flashed his headlights and the hissing braes brought the chugging engine to a stop.

Tim folded his sign and approached the cab. He had to put his foot on the step to reach the door. He could see the trucker, a largish man with too many burgers bulging over his belt, though the glass. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. As Tim pulled the door open, the driver turned on the light in the cab.

“Hi,” said Tim.

“Going to London?” the driver said. He had a thick voice, but it inflected in a friendly way.

“Yeah.”

The driver jerked his head. “Well, get in, then. The cab’s getting cold.”

Tim climbed up into the cab and slammed the door. The passenger seat was torn and littered with an empty crisp packet and some crumbs. The driver brushed them away with a chuckle then held out that hand.

“Mike,” he said.”

“Oh. Tim.” He shook Mike’s hand.

Mike smiled and turned off the cab light. He looked in the side mirror, then took his foot off the brakes. They hissed again and the engine started rumbling behind the cab. The whole cab rattled and bits of rubbish danced across the top of the dash, but Mike seemed oblivious.

As they pulled out into the motorway, Tim dumped his rucksack on the floor and put on his seat belt.

“Where are you headed?” Mike asked.

Tim frowned. “London.”

“Big place.” Mike chuckled. “Which part?”

“Oh. Wimbledon.” He got comfortable.

Mike nodded. “Well, I’m only going as far as Wembley. That do you?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Great.”

Mike chuckled again. “Not much I could do if it didn’t. So, how are you going to pay me?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your sign. It said you’d pay.”

“Oh, right. I’ve got cash.”

Mike didn’t look at him as he drove, apart from the occasional glance when he said something dumb. He was concentrating on the road, even though it was still virtually empty. He was taking advantage of the room, and accelerating.

“Why didn’t you take the train if you’ve got money?”

Tim snorted. “I don’t have that much money.”

Mike roared with laughter, slightly unsettlingly. “Good one. How much do train tickets cost these days, anyway?”

“Well, I started off in Edinburgh, so it would’ve been about ninety quid.”

“Fuck me! I don’t blame you for hitch-hiking, then. Needless to say, I won’t be asking for that much. A voluntary contribution toward petrol costs would be very welcome, though.”

Tim frowned. “Isn’t your petrol paid for?”

Mike looked round, touched his nose and then pointed at Tim. “You catch on fast, quick as a whippet.”

Then he laughed. Tim laughed too.

Tim unzipped his coat and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “I can give you about twenty quid.”

“I won’t take all of that.” Mike shook his head. “You’ll need money for the ticket from Wembley to Wimbledon. How about we say you give me ten?”

“Ten? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, and you can pay the rest of your dues by sucking my cock.”

Tim shot him a look. “What?”

Mike looked round. “What? You haven’t heard of the rule of the road? God, how many times have you hitch-hiked before? Why else do you think I picked you up? I give you a lift, you blow me; that’s how it works.”

“I-I...” Tim stammered.

Mike exploded laughing, though he kept his eyes on the road the entire time. “Jesus Christ, your face!”

“You’re joking!”

“Of course I’m joking, you bloody eejit! See that - ” he held up his ring finger “ - Been married ten years, I have.”

Tim laughed uneasily. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

Mike sighed. “Ten quid will do us fine. Make up for the bonus I’m going to lose when I don’t park this lorry outside back of Sainsbury’s in Wembley in two hours time.”

“I can give you fifteen if you really want.”

Mike shook his head. “Truth be told, I wanted some company. You’re lucky if you’ve only come from Edinburgh. I set off from Inverness yesterday afternoon.”

“Inverness? Jesus.”

“Yeah. You probably wouldn’t know how shit the radio gets at this time of the morning. There’s only so much you can shout at the kind of cunts they get calling in before you realise you’re just shouting to yourself anyway.”

“Yeah. I see what you mean.”

“Take a listen.”

Mike turned the dial on the dash. The radio had been on the entire time, just turned down. It was an early morning phone-in. Tim thought it was maybe Radio 5 Live.

Mike chuckled when the presenter said something facetious and cut someone off. Tim didn’t know what they were discussing and couldn’t tell either. He quickly phased out. He looked out the window. It was getting properly light now. He looked at his watch. It was after five.

Mike reached out and turned the radio down.

“So what do you do, Tim?” he asked. “Student?”

“No. Not anymore,” said Tim.

“Drop out?”

“No, I graduated.”

Mike looked at him. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Jesus, mate! Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look about seventeen.” He laughed.

Tim sighed. “Yeah, tell me about it. I still get ID’d when I buy booze. It’s embarrassing.”

“So they think you’re - what? Six years younger than you really are? Bit of a bugger, eh?”

“And the thing is I’ve got ID, but they don’t always believe it. I must be the only person who needs fake ID that says they’re younger than they really are!”

Mike roared with laughter.

“I even got a provisional driving licence to use as age ID, and I don’t even want to learn how to drive.”

Mike stopped laughing. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Tim shook his head. “Complicated.”

“Parents die in a car crash?”

Tim looked at him. Mike winked.

“Er, no,” Tim said.

Mike shrugged. “If you knew how to drive, you wouldn’t have to hitch-hike.”

“It’s expensive.”

“Not as expensive as public transport. And it’s a hella load more reliable. Plus you don’t have to sit in carriages with noisy irritating bastards. Which is something you might have to put up with hitch-hiking too.” He chuckled.

Tim shook his head. “I decided when I was ten that I wasn’t going to contribute to global warming.”

Mike laughed, then stopped. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“Oh, come off it!” “It’s true.” Tim shuffled uncomfortably.

Mike sighed. “Well, then you’ll be pleased to hear this is a diesel lorry, not an LRP one.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

Mike glanced over. Tim suddenly wondered if he’d said something dumb. He had.

“Diesel’s worse than LRP!” Mike said. “And if you really were one of these hippies you’d know that.”

Tim blushed. “Oh. Right.”

They drove on for perhaps thirty seconds before Mike said, “So why don’t you want to learn to drive really?”

Tim chuckled. “It’s embarrassing.”

“More embarrassing than being mistaken for a teenager?”

“Oh yeah. At least every time I get asked for ID I can tell myself I’ll be grateful for looking younger in a decade or so.”

“Oh, that’s true.”

They drove on for another couple of minutes.

“So are you going to tell me, then?” said Mike.

Tim shook his head. “No. You’ll only laugh.”

“Aw, so what? In a few hours we’ll be in London and then we’ll never see each other again.”

“I don’t know.”

“And I promise if you ever become famous I won’t sell the story to the ‘News of the World’.”

Tim laughed. “It’s not that embarrassing.”

“Well, then, you can tell me, can’t you?”

Tim sighed. “I took the cycling proficiency test when I was ten years old and that put me off.”

Mike eventually glanced at him, but said nothing.

“That’s the truth.”

“What’s the cycling proficiency test?”

“Test you can take at school to prove you’re a road-worthy cyclist. Take lessons with an instructor, then they take you out on the road, and you have to do a written paper as well, but it’s only ten questions.”

Mike looked over. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“No. I’m not.” Tim shook his head.

“What? You need to take driving lessons and a test to ride a fucking bike now?”

Tim scratched an itch that wasn’t there. “Well, no. You don’t have to. It’s just a road safety thing.”

“And you took it?”

“Yeah. My parents’ idea.”

“So, what? Did you fail or something?”

“No. I passed the road part of the test, and then we took the written test. It was road signs and what-do-you-do-if questions.”

“And you failed that?”

“No, as it turned out, eventually. We had to mark each other’s papers. I swapped mine with a girl named Lizzie. The guy taking the class read out the answers and you had to get eight out of ten to pass. But Lizzie only ticked seven correctly.”

Tim noticed a sign pointing to the London turn-off. They were two hundred miles away exactly.

“I thought you said you didn’t fail,” said Mike.

“I didn’t, but I thought I had. Everyone else in the class passed and got a certificate, a badge and this thing to put on the spokes of their bicycle wheels. I got nothing, so I started to cry. The guy taking the class sat down with me and my dad to go over my answers, and that’s when he found out I had got eight right after all. Lizzie had crossed one that I’d actually got right.”

“Fucking bitch.”

Tim snorted. “She was just dense.”

“And that’s why you don’t want to drive? Because some little girl marked your test wrong?”

“Well, not entirely.” Tim felt himself get hot. “But after that I was so happy I’d actually passed I rode my bike out in the road in front of Lizzie - and straight in front of a car too.”

Mike glanced over. “You got run over?”

“Yeah. When I was a kid I thought getting run over was meant literally. You know, the wheels roll over you. I fell off the bike, put my hand out to catch myself, landed heavily on it and broke my wrist.”

“Ouch!”

“Yeah. Haven’t rode a bike since.”

Mike laughed. “It put you off for life, huh?”

“Put me off cars, too. I can still remember the woman’s face, the one who knocked me down. She was crying more than I was. When you see all these kids riding in the road who have obviously not taken the cycling proficiency, it just makes you wonder why half of them aren’t killed.”

Mike grunted. “Tell me about it. Cyclists are the worst. They creep up in my blind spot and then try and overtake. But they can only pedal so fast, so it takes them bloody ages. Distracts me from the road.”

Tim shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be put in that position, nor would I want to put anyone else in that position either.”

“Well, I can see your point.” He chuckled. “That wasn’t too embarrassing now, was it?”

“No. I guess not.”

At that point, the conversation dried up. Mike took the London turning, which was an uphill road. The traffic was getting heavier. He had to slow down to stay in lane.

After a few minutes, Mike turned the radio up again.

“Will you be able to sleep with this on?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s okay. I can stay awake.”

“You look shattered.”

“You wanted company.”

Mike chuckled. “And I can still look over and see your cherubic face when you’re sleeping, can’t I?”

Tim looked at him.

Mike laughed. “Go on. Catch some zees.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I said, didn’t I?”

Tim found it surprisingly easy to fall asleep. He must have been more tired than he had realised. He closed his eyes and slumped in the seat and when he opened his eyes again it was much lighter outside and they were going slower.

Tim felt cold. He sat up and zipped his coat. Mike noticed and looked over, smiling.

“I didn’t think you were that tired,” he said.

“What time is it?” asked Tim.

Mike gestured the luminescent digital clock on the dashboard. It was nearly nine o’clock. It felt later, even though Tim didn’t feel like he had been asleep that long.

He rubbed his face. “Where are we?”

“We’re about to cross the border between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Should be there in another hour or so.”

Tim opened his rucksack and took out his water bottle. There were only a mouthful left in it.

“Couldn’t stop, could we?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen a service stop since Northampton.”

Tim smiled. “I can use a bush by the side of the road.”

“Oh. Right.” Mike grinned.

They passed a ‘Welcome to Hertfordshire’ sign.

“I’ll stop at the next lay-by we come to,” Mike said. “I think I need to stretch my legs too.”

It was another couple of miles before they reached it. There was a car parked. Mike drove right past.

“Weren’t you going to stop?” said Tim.

“Don’t want an audience, do we?”

Another ten minutes on the road and they came to the next lay-by, which was empty. There were tall trees and overgrown bushes along the side of the road. Mike pulled in and stopped the engine. All of a sudden Tim could hear the sound of the other traffic, racing past the lay-by, and it seemed very quiet in the cab, so the traffic sounded very distant. Mike opened his door.

“Are you going, then?” he said.

Tim chewed his tongue. “Yeah. Okay.”

He opened his door and hopped down from the cab. He jogged around the front of the lorry to the kerb and when he reached the verge he found Mike had hopped down too, and was standing beside his door, waiting for him.

Tim nodded and rubbed his hands, then he sighted a break in the thick vegetation and headed into the bushes.

Mike followed him.

Tim found a suitable spot, but didn’t stop. Mike was only a few feet behind. Tim could hear his heavy feet on the decaying undergrowth. So he kept going, pushing through the increasingly thick branches, until he could go no further. He stopped by the trunk of a tree and unzipped his fly.

Mike stopped beside him.

Tim tried to look sideways without turning his head, tried to look until his eyes hurt at the edges. His heart beat fast and he found it hard to go. Mike didn’t. He wanted to know if Mike was looking. Why else was he this close? What the hell was going on?

Mike finished first, then shook off and waited.

Tim still needed to go, but couldn’t force any more out. He zipped up his fly and headed out of the bushes.

Behind him, Mike chuckled.

Tim reached the cab first and climbed in before Mike had emerged from the bushes. He hadn’t seemed as keen to follow Tim out so closely as he had followed him in.

Eventually he emerged, carrying something. He climbed into the driver’s seat and held his hand out.

Tim didn’t respond.

“Go on.” Mike was eating something.

Tim held out his hand. Mike dropped a stalk of tiny blue berries into his palm.

“Sloes,” he said.

“What?”

“Eat them.”

Tim hesitated, then plucked off one and ate it. It was bittersweet and dry.

Mike chuckled. He had another stalk for himself. He turned the ignition and pulled out of the lay-by.

Tim didn’t dare not eat the rest of the berries, even though he swallowed each one with the knowledge stuck in the forefront of his mind that Mike had picked them with his pissing hand. He quickly finished them.

“Got a girlfriend, Tim?” Mike asked.

Tim decided to lie. “Yes.”

Mike nodded. “What’s her name?”

“Catherine.” It was his mother’s name.

“She in Edinburgh or London.”

“London. She’s in London.”

Mike chuckled again.

“Actually,” said Tim. “I’m still really tired. I think I might try and get some more sleep, if you don’t mind, that is.”

Mike shook his head. “Sure.”

They didn’t speak again.

Tim closed his eyes, but he didn’t fall asleep. He slumped in the chair and sat very still. He let his bottom lip fall open. He breathed noisily through his nose. He hoped Mike was buying it. Mike didn’t let on if he wasn’t.

Tim pretended to be asleep until they were in London. Tim guessed they had entered the city when the lorry kept stopping and moved much slower when it did move. He didn’t pretend to wake up straight away, though. It was still quite a way to Wembley. Tim tried to work out where they were from the sounds.

Suddenly Mike grabbed his thigh.

Tim jumped, and had to pretend he was waking up abruptly. He opened his eyes and looked around as Mike shook his knee.

“We’re on the circular,” Mike said.

“Already? What time is it?”

“About ten. Is it okay if I drop you outside Wembley Park tube station, Tim?”

“Yeah. Yes. That’d be great.”

Mike nodded, and said no more.

Tim finally recognised where they were when Mike pulled off the circular and Tim saw the arch of the new Wembley Stadium a few miles ahead.

Tim was still watching it get nearer when Mike turned on the flashing signal lights and pulled into the kerb.

“Here we are,” he said.

Tim looked out the window and saw the station right there. It was the tail end of the morning rush hour and a steady trickle of people were heading in and out.

“How much is it I owe you?” Tim said, picking up his rucksack’s strap and reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Twenty,” said Mike.

Tim looked up. That’s not what they had agreed. Mike looked at Tim, then looked away again. For a second, as his glance flicked past, Tim was sure Mike had looked at his crotch. He opened his wallet and found twenty. It would be all his loose change as well as his notes. He’d need to find a cash machine before he could catch the train.

“Twenty. There we are,” he said.

“It’s been a pleasure,” said Mike, reaching out a groping hand and grabbing the cash.

NOTES:
Another long one. I think you can tell the point when this changed from being just a dialogue to having a direction, just before they stop in the lay-by. That said, I always thought 'Mike' was a bit deranged, a typical Stephen King villain (well, human villain, anyway). The horror story about the fiendish hitch-hiker is pretty standard, but what about one where it's the driver who picks the hitch-hiker up that is the deranged one? Certainly similarities between 'Mike' and the guy in "Wolf Creek", though I can't remember if I saw that before or after I wrote this section. It was definitely around the same time. Tim's problem with proving his age are my own. Likewise his experiences with the cycling proficiency (though I wasn't knocked down by a car after I found out I'd actually passed after all).